Allison Weir CNI Vs JVP and Max Blumenthal

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Republished from 7092015

Oh my, is the above title a joke or something? I’ve refrained all these years from even commenting on Ms. Weir thinking there’s not really much to say about her as her impact in Washington is negligible, to say the most. But in view of the recent controversies involving an organization I do admire, Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), and a writer/activist who is both remarkable and courageous, Max Blumenthal, I’ll use my background in Washington to put Allison in quick perspective.

Bottom line, Allison Weir is a well-meaning, simple-minded, mediocre-thinking, narrowly-driven woman who found out rather late in the day that the Israelis were doing really bad things to the Palestinians! Then an incestuous group of Saudi-connected organizations, all kept on a short leash, found her, or maybe she found them, and she’s been going around for some years now talking about things that are actually quite well-known as if nobody knows. At most, by spending a great deal of energy and time and money, she has organized things in book and speech form, and keeps repeating it all over and over like a mantra.

The organization she is kind of “President” of, known as Council for the National Interest (CNI), is actually more fantasy than reality. It was started by the Saudis back in the 1980s via their favorite on-the-take former Congressman, Paul Findley. But it actually died a few years back from failure and exhaustion on top of funding-ending from the rich Arabs. CNI totally failed at its original goal to become a serious counter to the Israeli Lobby, a few years ago it even closed its shrunken office after it had relocated to an obscure Washington location a few years before that. But rather than burial, the aging “Arabist” former government officials, last of them Eugene Bird, turned over the carcass of CNI to Alison and a retired right-wing Pat Buchanon conservative fellow living off his CIA pension. Together they keep using the CNI logo for their own meager purposes and they keep pretending, to an aging unaware mailing list, that CNI is alive and impacting so they can squeeze a little more money from the unknowing.

As for Ms. Weir’s supposed commitment to human rights, Alison is too naive and so one-track simple-minded that she probably doesn’t even realize how she’s been used. Early on she allowed herself to be turned into a sub-agent of the Saudi-related organizations, all initially created by the way by Prince Bandar in his Saudi Ambassador days. Foremost among these are The National Council on U.S. Arab Relations (NCUSAR), The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), and its associated “research”thing called IRMEP (Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy).

Back to the bottom line. Allison is oh-so-politically-naive and knows so little about the greater Middle East or the underlying realities of U.S. foreign policy or world affairs that she’s no threat to her controllers. She only knows that the Palestinians have been terribly treated and that the Israeli and Jewish Lobby is very powerful. And in that sense she has a pretty easy target appealing to many in fact. She never deals with or even attempts to understand anything else — for instance terrible human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi-sponsored Junta in Egypt, Saudi and Gulf complicity in creating the horrible Syrian refugee crisis on top of what the Saudis have done in Bahrain and Yemen. She doesn’t even care about the de facto Saudi alliance with her nemesis Israel. For Allison there’s no attempt at connecting the dots…for she sees only one dot.

And so that explains why the interwoven and incestuous groups keep trotting Allison out to put forth her over and over again repeated comments about the poor Palestinians, the evil Israelis, and the bad Israeli/Jewish lobby. What she says about all of these subjects is largely accurate, but nearly always just a regurgitation of what is out there from many in many places. The basic problem we all face is not more information, it is how to make use of that information to seriously change what is. Of course that’s not what Allison is really all about…that would be really hard compared to the relative easy path she has chosen. Worse though is what Allison and her cohorts avoid like the plague — any and everything about the Saudi and Gulf dictatorships role in controlling the Middle East, increasingly in tandem with the Israelis, at such a horrible cost in blood and history and basic freedom and dignities for their citizens. As I’ve already mentioned, but should further emphasize, even the increasingly expanding Saudi-Israel alliance is something Allison and her friends fear not only to challenge but to even seriously discuss!

OK, enough said about Allison Weir! But I do have a bit of unsolicited advice for JVP and Max Blumenthal. Please stick to the big picture and please keep doing more and more to promote BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel) aiming to bring about a basic change in the U.S. alliance with Israel — something you have come to represent even though that goal still seems distant. Don’t get any further diverted with Allison Weir and those who may be well-meaning in defending her but who are also unable or unwilling to connect the critical dots. Getting so sidetracked is one the pitfalls to be avoided, one of the things “the other side” loves to foment causing confusion and dismay and fragmentation.

OK! Now that I’ve quickly had my say about this JVP/Blumenthal/Allison Weir matter, having refrained until now, please excuse my own brief diversion over this Holiday weekend. I just thought the overall perspective from someone who has been in Washington for some time, has witnessed what’s been going on, and knows most of the players, might be useful. Anyone who reads my daily blog — MarkBruzonsky.com/blog — knows that I really try to focus on the big issues, to cut through all the foggy propaganda and smoke-screens, and to passionately advocate critical truths and historical justice, as sloganeering as that may sound.